Pi Zero 2 released
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So happy to hear the zero got an upgrade. I have wanted to build a handheld for a long time, but the zero just wasn't quite enough power for it to be worth it. Until now!
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Started experimenting with RetroPie on my Zero 2. Installed the latest weekly image (from Oct 29) and then used the RetroPie-Setup script to update it (including operating system packages). Everything seems to work fine, including audio.
By the way, there's no easy way of using FKMS or KMS video drivers with RetroPie on this hardware, right? It seems the old BRCM stack is still the default on pre-Pi 4 hardware and trying to use FKMS or KMS results in EmulationStation not starting (which isn't too surprising, of course).
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@brunnis said in Pi Zero 2 released:
By the way, there's no easy way of using FKMS or KMS video drivers with RetroPie on this hardware, right?
You can do that, but you'll have to re-install from source every package, since we don't provide KMS enabled binaries. Of course, depending on the choice (fkms/kms driver), some packages will not be available (splashscreen, audio, emulators that depend on the BRCM stack, etc.). You might as well do that on a Pi3, since it has more RAM, and transfer back the image.
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@mitu said in Pi Zero 2 released:
You can do that, but you'll have to re-install from source every package, since we don't provide KMS enabled binaries. Of course, depending on the choice (fkms/kms driver), some packages will not be available (splashscreen, audio, emulators that depend on the BRCM stack, etc.). You might as well do that on a Pi3, since it has more RAM, and transfer back the image.
Right, that was simple enough. Thanks! Just recompiled EmulationStation and it now starts up fine.
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@mitu I utilized the config.txt from that thread, but still can't get audio over the headphone jack or speaker to work yet. I'm still get a no sound device error when starting games.
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@thomasca Not sure what topic you're referring to - may start a separate topic and add more info.
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Got RetroArch working with KMS as well, by recompiling. Now, the more troublesome part will be to try to get the GPI Case display working under KMS. I don't know if anyone has done it. Found this recent thread on the Raspberry Pi forums, which offers some pointers, but no conclusion:
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=322556
If anyone knows of any more useful resources (or anyone that has done this before), I'd be grateful if you'd let me know.
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@brunnis yeah I couldn't understand it. It's clearly possible I just can't figure out how to recompile that device tree files without getting errors. The good though is if one person figures it out is the gpi case is uniform and we can all just use the same dts file
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@retropieuser555 Ahh, that was your thread! Bummer that you didn't get it working. I'll see if I can give it a shot, but my main enemy these days is that I often have too little time available to deep dive on stuff like this.
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@mitu Sorry, I was talking about the link you provided to the separate thread with a version of config.txt that fixed sound.
I forgot to copy over dpi24.dbto to the overlay folder though. After I did that, it started working.
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I've been testing my Zero 2 with a few SNES games and I am a bit suprised of the poor performance in Star Fox. I know it's a SuperFX game, but performance seems to be worse than I remember it from back around 2016-2017 when I was testing a lot with my Pi 3. Running RetroPie on a 1080p display using either FKMS or KMS, the Star Fox intro scene when the Arwing fly through the tunnel gives very noticeable audio crackling. Even overclocking the Zero 2 to the same clock frequency as the Pi 3, i.e. 1.2 GHz, does not fully solve the problem. Combining the overclock with lowering the resolution to 720p does seem to get it to run at 60 FPS without issues.
This makes me wonder though... Does anyone know if anything has changed in the past few years that affected performance in any significant way? In my old Pi 3 testing, I could run at 1080p and no overclocking and it would handle Star Fox perfectly fine. Even with threaded video disabled and using the KMS video driver. Do you have any ideas, @mitu or @dankcushions ?
All testing done on snes9x2010, by the way.
EDIT: It seems it will work without audio crackling at 1.2 GHz, 1080p with threaded video enabled. As I mentioned above, I believe threaded video could be disabled in this game a few years ago.
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@brunnis i've no idea i'm afraid - haven't played it and don't have a pi3 anymore :( @Darksavior may know - I believe they mentioned this game before.
whilst the zero 2 is sort of a slightly downclocked pi3, i wonder if the cache/memory etc are clocked the same? would be curious to know all the various frequencies it reports. core/memory overclocks often gave good results with the pi3 so it could be crucial.
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@dankcushions Thanks. I know at least the core clock is the same as the Pi 3 (400 MHz). Need to check the V3D default, but I did try setting it to 500 MHz and it did not improve the situation. The reviews I've read indicate memory performance is more or less the same as the Pi 3.
There could of course be lots of things affecting performance over the years. There's RetroArch itself, the emulator and even firmware/kernel/driver changes. Would be interesting to try some older builds on my Pi 3. Not sure I'm willing to really deep dive into this, though. Might just have to accept that things have changed. 😛
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@brunnis one thing to confirm is if you're using audio_driver =
alsathread- i'm not sure what setup you're running - it should always be alsathread by default for pi0-3, but I would double check in the RGUI. but yeah, as you say it could be down to all manner of updates since then... -
@dankcushions Yep, using alsathread, so that's unfortunately not the issue.
EDIT: If I get some time over the next week or so, I might actually try a couple of old images to try to get a good understanding of exactly how much performance has deteriorated. Shouldn't be all that much work.
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You need a magic shim as been playing with the OC and found used two 15mm x 2mm copper shims so I could get a bigger heatsink to fit over the HDMI (20mm not much bigger but a bit more chunkier)
arm_freq=1400 over_voltage=6 sdram_freq=500 core_freq=500 v3d_freq=400 h264_freq=400 isp_freq=400Seems to be stable but maybe if cpu is not as effective as core_freq and v3d_freq then arm_freq=1300 over_voltage=4 might be OK.
Typically after not finding a 3mm shim so it does have clearance soon as I ordered then found a 3mm copper shim.
The copper does seem to be like magic as could not get much above 1300 before -
Interesting that Raspberry Pi OS based on Debian Bullseye was just released. Might give it a test run with a manual installation of RetroPie (though I'm guessing some things may be broken). I wonder what Mesa version they've included... (EDIT: It's Mesa 20.3.5) The KMS driver is apparently the default now.
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@brunnis Dunno but worth a try with the last image just got a GLmark2 onscreen score of 141 so see if it improves with new?
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@brunnis Confused as maybe because I did a raspi-config but glmark2 reporting the renderer is llvmpipe
Try again I guess and leave raspi-config alone, nope llvmpipe is now default.
I would go onto the forum and get some info but got thrown off yesterday for saying replying to obvious troll spam and comparing a Pi against a Shield Pro TV was stupid.
They have even blocked my IP such a crock they reply to obvious troll spam and kick users who tell them so... !
I have 2x Zero2 but sort of stuffed without simple support like the forum. -
@stuartiannaylor You're getting offtopic here and bashing other forums - which try to provide support for all sorts of users - is not welcomed. If you registered here just because you've been blocked/banned in the RPI forums, I don't think is going to be much help - we're not a general RPI support forum.
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